Details

ISBN-10: 160486205X
ISBN-13: 9781604862058
Publisher: PM Press
Publish Date: 07/01/2010
Dimensions: 8.00" L, 4.90" W, 0.30" H

Calling All Heroes: A Manual for Taking Power

Paperback

Price: $12.00

Overview

The euphoric idealism of grassroots reform and the tragic reality of revolutionary failure are at the center of this speculative novel that opens with a real historical event. On October 2, 1968, 10 days before the Summer Olympics in Mexico, the Mexican government responds to a student demonstration in Tlatelolco by firing into the crowd, killing more than 200 students and civilians and wounding hundreds more. The Tlatelolco massacre was erased from the official record as easily as authorities washing the blood from the streets, and no one was ever held accountable.

It is two years later and Nestor, a journalist and participant in the fateful events, lies recovering in the hospital from a knife wound. His fevered imagination leads him in the collection of facts and memories of the movement and its assassination in the company of figures from his childhood. Nestor calls on the heroes of his youth–Sherlock Holmes, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and D’Artagnan among them–to join him in launching a new reform movement conceived by his intensely active imagination.

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Reviews

"Taibo's writing is witty, provocative, finely nuanced and well worth the challenge."
Publishers Weekly

"I am his number one fan...I can always lose myself in one of his novels because of their intelligence and humor. My secret wish is to become one of the characters in his fiction, all of them drawn from the wit and wisdom of popular imagination. Yet make no mistake, Paco Taibo–sociologist and historian–is recovering the political history of Mexico to offer a vital, compelling vision of our reality."
–Laura Esquivel, author of Like Water for Chocolate

"The real enchantment of Mr. Taibo's storytelling lies in the wild and melancholy tangle of life he sees everywhere."
New York Times Book Review

"Wild and imaginative rambling it may seem, but Paco Ignacio Taibo's work always conceals absurdly hidden truths, and in this case the absurdly hidden truth concerned the universally condemned massacre of students in Tlatelolco, Mexico, in 1968. The author weaves a highly inventive tale populated by comic book and literary heroes who help the convalescing journalist Nï¿1/2stor recall the moment and recreate the tragic events that the Mexican government crudely, yet effectively, sought to erase from the country's official history. Taibo uses humour and an unrivalled inventiveness to shine a light onto the darkness, and the result is intoxicating, and subversive, enchantment."
Latin American Review of Books

"It doesn't matter what happens. Taibo's novels constitute an absurdist manifesto. No matter how oppressive a government, no matter how strict the limitations of life, we all have our imaginations, our inventiveness, our ability to liven up lonely apartments with a couple of quacking ducks. If you don't have anything left, oppressors can't take anything away."
Washington Post Book World

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Details

ISBN-10: 160486205X
ISBN-13: 9781604862058
Publisher: PM Press
Publish Date: 07/01/2010
Dimensions: 8.00" L, 4.90" W, 0.30" H
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